The Flat-Pack Pieces That Hold Their Own in Professionally Designed Rooms

Veranda has gathered a dozen IKEA pieces that working interior designers bring into the rooms they create for clients, and it counts them in a single figure: twelve. In a market where a designed American house is usually described by its architect, its year and its finishes, a list like this one points out that the people who make those houses find value in plain, widely available furniture. The magazine's point is that a room's quality comes from the eye choosing what goes in it, not from the size of the furniture budget. For readers furnishing a house of their own, from a beach cottage in Florida to an apartment in New York, it is a professional's approval of a store that nearly anyone can walk into.

With reporting from Veranda.